Safety Onboard - Part One

For the last ten years or so safety has become the biggest thing amongst the shipping community since the steam engine wiped the sail from the mast and has become a massive money earner for thousands! Don't knock it, I mean safety is of ultimate importance to all concerned and it is directly related to the profits of a company but there are a lot of chinks in the armour!

As a basic entry to the subject of safety; a recent survey conducted by the UK Shipping Union Numast and as printed in their monthly rag The Telegraph it was found that Deck Officers suffer approximately (I cannot remember the exact figures) 70% of all accidents at sea, cooks 20% and Engineers a mere 10%. It could thus be assumed that the 10% of engineers who were injured in the line of work might have actually been thumped by a Deck Officer for mentioning such statistics but it is not in the premise of this article to discuss Oily Water Mixtures.

On a more factual note; it is the concern for all at sea to be safety conscious, aware of trips and hazards and to share the responsibility equally for transforming the workplace into a safe environment. To quote some famous "safety person" from the distant past: one trip and we all trip! This actually sounds like a group of hippies passing a joint around but it is in fact in direct reference to each and every seafarer being affected by any one accident whether they are present or not. As an extreme example of this, if one man accidentally pulls the plug out without first checking to see if there is no water under the boat then quite simply the whole crew will be blowing bubbles and very quickly indeed.

Another extreme example of a lapse in safety awareness could be the mate who having eaten an excess of baked beans that evening finds that he needs to visit the toilet during his watch. Unfortunately, in his rush to empty his stomach the latch on the toilet door sticks and he cannot get out! The ship meanwhile, finds it needs some wheels as it grinds to a halt outside the Elephant Bar in Dover town centre!

In both the cases above simple safety measures taken could have prevented these accidents, removed any possible embarrassment factor and in short life would be just great! In study one, the ships drain plug should have had a large sign next to it that says something to the tune of, "check for water first", or on a more informal note, "are you floating? Well step away then". In study two a simple notice adhered to the door of the toilet that said, "this lock jams" would have been more than adequate and the mate might have resisted from operating the lock in the first place.

Signs and safety notices are one of the money spinners that companies ashore relish. Easy to make and ships carry them by the thousands. It is quite a common muttering around the corridors, bilges and galleys of most vessels at sea today. A few more common of these are: "Bloody notices, everywhere I look I see another one", "no space for my playboy poster anymore" and "there are so many that I can't see them any more". The last is in fact quite true with every possible space, nook and cranny liberally pasted with signs and helpful hints to wear a safety boots, to mind your head, to follow the yellow brick road and to tell you that hot water scalds. Quite simply though seafarers have been overwhelmed with such notices, so much so that the impact of seeing one is seriously diminished. In fact to get from A to B whilst taking note of all the signs on the way would increase the journey from a mere couple of minutes to an hour or two. "Yes Captain, I will be there directly" and to turn up an hour later would not go down well at all! Well Captain, I stopped first to check that I was climbing the stairs safely that I had both hands on the handrail and that no slippery substances were on any of the steps. And then I checked to see which way the door opened and by the by I read a sign that said "beware of falling objects", so I found myself looking up at the deck head to check and then ". They are though an attempt to make seafarers aware of any danger that they might find themselves in although if any remaining gaps of bulkheads were not filled with company Policy Notices, safety meeting minutes and recent safety flashes there might have been a little light relief in the way of a calendar or two!

It is only recently that seafarers have come to realise that the safest way to work safely is through helping each other. During the unsafe years if an Engineer of lowly rank deigned to inform the Captain that he should be wearing a safety helmet on deck he quite possibly could find himself chewing on a fist full of knuckles. Equally so should a kindly mate point out to a sweating and harassed engineer that he should not be welding without a permit he might find himself chewing a fist full of knuckles, topped off with a steel toe capped boot in the groin. These handy hints did not sit well at all. But times have changed and it is now possible to point out others omissions without fear of instant reprisal and for the most part these handy hints are taken onboard and acted upon, this due to a culture change that was hard fought against and only recently accepted.

Notices and kindly reminders apart good safety practices and as a direct result a clean slate on the accident board are influenced greatly by individuals, their moods and quirks and feelings at any given time. As an example of this and to explain what I mean by the jumbled up sentence above; if a particularly obtuse Chief Engineer likes to see the fourth engineer climbing bulkheads (literally speaking) by annoying him and winding him up on an hourly basis then it is more than likely that the aforementioned fourths judgement will lapse slightly. Due to constant abuse and dire feelings of either wanting to smack the Chief or cry his ability to think clearly and to concentrate fully on the job in hand will be diminished. It is quite possible in such a scenario that he may, whilst rebuilding the purifier (that the chief said he had broken) forget to put the locknut on. Consequently and not soon after pressing the start button he may find the purifier bowl being launched upwards at a rate of knots, possibly to smash through the deck head above and into the control room where the chief might just be sitting down for a quiet smoke. Under no circumstance can this possible accident be put down to the fourths wish to see the chief looking like a bowl of bread and butter pudding, it would simply be an accident caused by a serious lack of attention, a direct result of his mind being clouded by the chiefs words and the tears that blocked his vision. Had the Chief Engineer said nothing, or even lent a hand to fix the purifier (a bit far fetched but suitable for this example) none of this would have ever happened.

Personnel departments are often to blame for a lapse in a seafarer's safety awareness and record. For example, a seafarer with an unblemished record and who is looking forwards to going home may receive an email from the office saying that they cannot relieve him for another few weeks. In fact he may not receive an email at all and just find himself well over his time and without news. Despite the fact that this scenario is verging on press gang style employment tactics it does tend to diminish the awareness and sense of responsibility of the seafarer involved. He is basically tired, and now upset! Were once he would don safety hat, working boots, gloves, immersion suit and nose plug for cleaning out the crews lavatory he may lapse and miss out the nose plug and safety helmet only to be overwhelmed by a particularly potent stall, turn away in a hurry and smash his head on the sink. This would never have happened if he had got off in time!

What sometimes goes awry with this new safety conscious environment is that accidents are often linked directly to a companies profits and it is therefore the accountant who has a large say in how seafarers live their lives! On land the first notice board that many see before entering the work site is a large and all imposing board that blocks the view of all else (a potential hazard in itself). This board gives recent statistics on lost time accidents with dates and accidents caused listed freely! What this equates to, is a company that would like to portray itself as safe and accident free one, were safety of personnel is of the highest priority. But there is a problem here, if the company has an inadvertent number of accidents it has to do one of two things or both! It has to remove the board with all due haste and start the marketing campaign of being an environmentally friendly workplace rather that a safe one or it has to hide these accidents so that they never appear on the board! I mean realistically speaking a notice board outside the gate that clearly states that this company has had 33 lost time incidents, twelve serious down time accidents and one death in the last month is going to see its profits drop sharply. Never mind the fact that trying to employ anybody to replace those fallen would be rather difficult.

Despite what the accountants want though it is primarily in any employees interest to work in a safe manner, to work alongside people who follow that same ideal and that he/she can go home each night to the family with all limbs still attached.

The rules and regulations that therefore dictate our ways of life, the notices and signs that confuse us to near hysterics and the kindly reminders that others freely offer are therefore part and parcel of the path to a safe and rewarding life. It would be best therefore to head, to follow and to learn as at the end of the day it is our own heads on the chopping block!